


It's a Thing in Russia

by Tierfal



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M, New Year's Eve, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-26 16:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13239258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: Yuuri's not-especially-diabolical New Year's Eve plan goes off without a hitch.





	It's a Thing in Russia

**Author's Note:**

> Meant to finish this up yesterday and did not succeed, so happy new year a bit late! XD
> 
> I would be lying if I said I did any research for this fic, so my apologies if anything is not especially accurate – I barely scrounged up time to write the thing, so the detail stuff ended up waaaaay in the backseat. ^^;;

Speaker phone mics have gotten to be very sensitive: Yuuri’s pretty sure he can _hear_ Yuri gritting his teeth when Victor singsongs the syllables of his name.  Well, not his name—the name Victor gave him instead of his name, as though anyone who had ever met them even once could get Yuuri and Yuri confused.

Part of Yuuri thinks that ‘Yurio’ is the most hilarious thing that’s ever happened on the planet Earth; part of him feels bad for his partial responsibility in it, however accidental; and part of him thinks Yuri should express some appropriate respect for the simple fact that living legend _Victor Nikiforov_ is the one who bestowed the stupid nickname on him.  There are people out there who would commit triple homicide to earn a stupid nickname from Victor.

There is not a whole lot of respect in Yuri’s hissed-out “ _What_?”, although the homicide part is still possible.

Honestly, Yuri’s lucky that they haven’t turned up on his doorstep unannounced in the week since he got his place here in Saint Petersburg—Yuuri’s surprised Victor hasn’t suggested it yet.

“Just wanted to say hello!” Victor coos into the phone, which is a lie, and everyone on the call with the possible exception of Victor himself knows it.  “How are you settling in?”

“ _Fine_ ,” Yuri says.  Yuuri wonders how many phones he loses annually when his scathing voice drips acid onto their screens.  “Hello, then.  Don’t call me.  ’Bye.”

“Wait!” Victor says.

The phone displays the end-of-the-call screen.  The corners of Victor’s mouth turn down.

“Why is he so rude?” Victor asks.

“Let me try,” Yuuri says, fishing his phone out of his pocket.  He scrolls through his contacts, taps to dial, and holds it up to his ear.

The line clicks.  “What do you want, Pork Chop?”

“Hi,” Yuuri says.  A part of him wants to remind Yuri that, in civilized spaces, that’s usually how conversations are supposed to start, but he doesn’t know if he can afford to waste the time.  “Victor’s wondering if you’re going to have a combination housewarming-slash-New Year’s Eve party.”

“Why the hell would I do that?” Yuri asks.

“Because it would be fun,” Yuuri says.

“Even if I lost my grip on reality enough to want to do that,” Yuri says, “what the hell makes you think I’d invite _you_?”

“Hunch,” Yuuri says.  “And we’d bring food.”  He considers.  “And nice stuff for your cat.”

Makka, who has been snoozing on the couch, curled up like a giant fluffy life-ring, cracks an eye open suspiciously at the word.

“I hate you,” Yuri says.

“Okay,” Yuuri says.  “Do you want us to come over at, like, six?  Seven?”

“ _I hate you_ ,” Yuri says again.

“I heard you the first time,” Yuuri says.  “Do you have a favorite pierogi place here?  I want to make sure they’ll be open.”

“ _Die_ ,” Yuri says.

The line does.

Yuuri lowers the phone and looks at the screen, waiting.

Victor drops onto the couch next to Makka and starts stroking.  “Six-thirty, or…?”

“Hang on,” Yuuri says.

Fifteen seconds later, the text tone on his phone bleeps.  The message says _7 so you don’t stay as long you assholes, any pierogi are fine, p.s. fuck you_

Yuuri texts back, _Make sure you invite Otabek!  We would love to see him, and you._

“Seven,” he says.

Victor beams.

  


* * *

  


When his phone buzzes, Otabek is in one of the last record stores in Saint Petersburg, if not the world, sampling options from the classical section.  Romanticism hasn’t let him down on the ice yet.  If only that was true…

It’s Yuri.  How… is ‘serendipitous’ the word?  Otabek’s not sure he trusts that one any further than he could throw the dictionary.

_Hey, nikiforov and katsudon bribed me into having a stupid NYE party so you should come if you want._

Otabek stares at his phone.  Then he stares at the CDs on the shelf.  Then he stares out the window at the street.  Everything still seems to be more or less in order, which makes this… a lot of things.  Suspect, sudden, and—perhaps—serendipitous after all.

He knows Yuri found a little flat here about two weeks ago, but he’s been struggling ever since to find an ostensibly normal way to propose that they meet up or hang out or hit the rink together or something.  The persistent problem has been that while he knows that commenting on one of the recent selfies with _Hi, can I show up at your place and make us both a cup of tea and gaze at you endlessly while I stir?_ will definitely not have the desired effect, he’s not sure what _would_.

 _Sounds great,_ he types back, since that sounds much more normal than “ _YES!!!!!_ ”.  _What should i bring?_

 _eugh_ Yuri sends.  The little ellipsis bubble promises more, which momentarily appears.  _the patience of a saint?  you showing up so that i’m not trapped alone with them is more than enough_

 _That i can definitely do,_ Otabek writes.  _What time is good and lmk your address?_

Perfect.  Totally casual.  He’s got this in the bag.  He’s going to show up with an industrial-sized box of chocolates that is meant to be a housewarming gift, _obviously_ , not a token of deep devotion and intense admiration, because that would be ridiculous.  Should he get hats?  Party hats.  He doesn’t know if Yuri is the type to acquire party hats, but he feels somewhat strongly that one can’t have a New Year’s Eve party without them.  Maybe he’ll get some and bring them just in case, and if there are already hats on the premises, he’ll leave them in his bag and pretend it never happened.

Yuri texts over the relevant information as well as the skull emoji.  Otabek adds everything—emoji included—to his calendar app and then sends back a thumbs-up.

When nothing else is forthcoming, he returns to his regularly-scheduled entertainment and sorts through a few more CDs.  Once he has his selections in hand, he brings them up to the counter, where a grandmotherly-looking woman and a younger one who may be her daughter wait next to a register that looks like it was top-of-the-line in 1993.

“Hello,” he says.  “I need a song for a performance—” He’s found that this is the best way to phrase it: people assume he plays a musical instrument of some kind, but the input he gets is just as good without requiring a long, awkward explanation.  “—and I’m hoping you might be able to give me some advice on what would be exciting for the audience.”

As he’d hoped would be the case with people dedicated enough to music to try to run a record store in the digital music era, they give excellent and enthusiastic advice.  Once he’s purchased their suggestions and thanked them for their time, he starts out of the store with the jewel cases tucked away in his bag and puts his headphones in.  It usually takes him a moment of fumbling to start his music, which is why he hears—

“What a nice young man.”

“Does he look familiar to you?”

“It’s the hair.  They’ve all got that same terrible hair these days.”

“Ah.  Yes.  Pity.”

Ouch.  Oh, well.  That that’s what he gets for eavesdropping.

  


* * *

  


If there is anything Victor loves more than a holiday that revolves around champagne, resolutions, frosty air, staying up inadvisably late, and kissing the man beside him at a designated time in addition to all of the other unscheduled times…

Well, there’s one contender, and it’s the way that Yuuri’s eyes and face sharpen when he’s focusing intently.

“Is that Otabek?” Yuuri asks.

As if Victor could possibly, in any universe, be arsed to look at anyone but Yuuri at a time like this, when they’re snuggled up together in the starlight, crouched behind a bush to watch Yurio’s front door.  “Maybe?”

“I think it’s him,” Yuuri says.  He pats at Victor’s arm distractedly with one mittened hand and leans forward just a touch, peeking between the leaves.  “Okay, let’s see what…”

What happens, as Victor discovers in the process of tragically tearing his eyes away from his agonizingly beautiful fiancé, is that Otabek hesitates at the end of the walkway, checks his phone, takes what looks like a deep breath, squares his shoulders, continues up the path, and knocks on the door.  Two seconds pass.  He glances around himself, shifts his weight, and then perks up again, stilling—at which point the door opens, revealing Yurio with an armful of the fluffy, cream-colored cat.  Yurio beckons Otabek inside, waving his cat-free hand at the immense, gift-wrapped box Otabek tries to give him, and then sticks his head out of the doorway and looks around, presumably in search of the two most gorgeous skating champions that have ever tormented the world by hooking up exclusively with each other.

“Ah, love,” Victor says.  “Can we go in now?”

“We need to give it a couple minutes,” Yuuri says, flashing Victor the grin that turns his knees to pudding.  That’s going to be a problem when they do eventually stand up.  “Let them get settled first.”

“Oh, dear,” Victor says, letting his eyes slide halfway shut and his voice slide halfway sultry.  “However will we pass the time?”

“Shoot,” Yuuri says.  “You just reminded me I totally forgot to text Phichit to say happy new year—what time is it in the States?”

Victor can’t even cry at a time like this, because his tears might freeze.  “I…” He also can’t say _My mathematical prowess suffers when my heart is broken, Yuuri, you cruel master of my being_.

Except that Yuuri is grinning at him, and one of the mittens hooks around the back of his neck and draws him in until the heat of Yuuri’s breath tickles his lips—and then Yuuri’s mouth does.

“I’m just _kidding_ ,” Yuuri says.

“You are not funny,” Victor says in the gasped-in moments between instants of contact, “at _all_ ,” but it is extremely difficult to stay angry at the love of your life when he’s kissing you very, very well.

  


* * *

  


“I hope you like chocolate,” Otabek says.

That seems a bit redundant—or, at the very least, far too late—when Yuri is staring down at the monstrosity in his lap.  Potya appreciates one of the trailing tails of ribbon that Yuri tore off of it, so at least there’s that.

“Everybody likes chocolate,” Yuri says.  It’s not true, but his brain is doing a selection of the really stupid things it tends to do when Otabek is in the room, so he’ll take what he can get.  “You really didn’t have to bring anything.”

“It seemed like the right thing to do,” Otabek says.

“The right thing to do is not to tell the cops when I murder Nikiforov and the pork chop,” Yuri says.  He’s thinking about it.  He’s been thinking about it, in some detail, for several hours now.

“You should have some chocolate first,” Otabek says.  “To keep your strength up.  Murder is hard work.”

“You know,” Yuri says, opening the box—Potya leaps up onto the couch next to him and starts sniffing at the edge, so he has to hold it out of range—and picking one that looks promising.  “I think you’re the most sensible person I’ve ever met.”

Shit.  He gets way too honest when he’s distracted trying not to let the cat into the chocolate, apparently.

But blushing is for losers, so he instead he gives Otabek the start of a glare, daring him to challenge the compliment.

Otabek just sort of… blinks at him.  Otabek has really nice eyes.

“Thank you,” Otabek says.  “I’m not sure anyone’s ever told me that before.”

“Then the people you know are stupid,” Yuri says.  He’s tended to find, over the course of his life, that regardless of what you say, saying it viciously discourages argument.

Otabek smiles slightly.  It’s a shame that he’s always so careful with it—like he has to guard the movement of his own muscles, and if he shifts anything too much, he’ll strain his face.  It’s a damn shame, because Yuri’s seen him smile for _real_ once or twice, and when he does, it’s—

Whatever.

“I’m not sure about that,” Otabek is saying, regardless of the understatedness of his expressive impulses.  “But thank you.  I think.”

“Sure,” Yuri says.  “Hey— _Potya_ —Potya, _no_ —”

Mila once told him that it was only fitting that he would have a cat who regularly destroyed things just for fun, and he told her she was an evil witch, but she might have had the tiniest bit of a fragment of a point: Potya appears to want to get her paws into the chocolate entirely because it’s _there_.

Lifting it up out of her reach without sacrificing his comfortable spot on the couch proves significantly more difficult than it has any right to be, so he stands up for good measure, fumbling for the lid that he set aside so that he can just close the box to keep her out of it—

He’s upright, with the box raised, looking at her curled up on the couch and watching him close, which is why he doesn’t notice until their hands collide that Otabek is standing right on the opposite side of the box, fitting the lid on the top.

“There,” Otabek says.

Yuri stares at him.  Otabek stares back.  The box, which seemed ludicrously too-large at the onset, now feels very, very, _very_ small.  There’s a little teensy curl of Otabek’s hair right in the middle of his forehead that rolls back against itself.  Yuri likes his eyebrows.

“Um.”  Yuri’s voice refuses to sound like itself.  “Thanks.”

Otabek has not let go of the box.  Yuri has not let go of the box.  Somehow his living room feels like another planet.

“No problem,” Otabek says.

Yuri is staring at Otabek’s bottom lip.  It’s—nice.  Why are some lips nice?  Most lips are just lips, and that word is starting to sound like nonsense in his head, besides which he keeps feeling compelled to wet his own mouth with his tongue, but another part of him keeps slamming on the brakes in an attempt to convey to him that that is a _very_ bad idea.

This is exactly why he doesn’t host fucking parties: this one has been going on for less than five minutes, and he’s standing here supporting half the weight of a huge box of chocolates and staring at Otabek’s mouth like some kind of mouth-starer.

“Uh,” he says.  “Can I… get you… anything?”

He’s pretty sure his grandfather usually says something like that that to people when they first walk through the door.

“Oh,” Otabek says.  He drops his hands from the box, and Yuri tightens his grip instinctively.  “Um—no, thank you, I—”

The knock at the door means two things, one beautiful and one terrible.

Beautiful first: Yuri doesn’t have to figure out what the hell to say next.

Terrible: whether or not they are or will ever become aware of it, he now owes Nikiforov and Katsudon a giant, stupid favor.  Or at least a thank-you.  Or at least a few minutes of not being a total shit.

It just figures that they can save his neck and be a pain in the ass at the exact same time.

“Hang on,” he says, sidling past Otabek, who’s stumbling backwards, so that he can set the chocolates down and get the door.

The two ass-pains in question beam at him, cheeks and noses bright pink above their scarves from the cold.  Victor’s is Burberry.  Yuuri’s is… an abomination, really, but probably handmade by someone in his family, or possibly Victor.  Yuri has learned the hard way to put absolutely nothing past the sheer power—creative, destructive, and otherwise—of Victor’s affection at this point.

“Happy new year!” Victor says.

“It’s not yet,” Yuri says, stepping back out of the way so that they won’t trample him when they barge in.

“We brought some card games, too,” Yuuri says as Yuri moves to close the door behind them.  “My family always does that to pass the time until midnight.”

Yuri seriously considers not closing the door at all, and instead hurling himself through it, burying himself in a snowbank, and freezing to death.  It would probably be more fun.

But Yuuri pushes a big freezer bag of pierogi at him, and then Yuuri and Victor are each grabbing one of Otabek’s hands to shake like they haven’t seen him in centuries, and patting at his arms for some reason, and he looks a little bit flustered and a little bit delighted, so Yuri supposes that _maybe_ they can stay, and no one has to die of exposure just yet.

  


* * *

  


“This game,” Victor says, “is _terrible_.”

Yuuri has to bite his lip hard to keep himself from laughing.  Victor notices—not the laughing part, Yuuri’s pretty sure.

“It’s fun,” Yuuri says before Victor can levy further protests anyway.  “It’s Phichit’s favorite.”

“Mine, too,” Yuri says.  “Draw four, Bacon Grease.”

Yuuri gets the feeling that Yuri’s diet during the season has a rather limited sugar content, because the hot cocoa that Otabek made for all of them—he just keeps subtly pulling party-ready items out of his bag and then putting them to use, and nobody knows what to say about it—seems to have gone directly to Yuri’s head.  The variations on pork-themed nicknames have grown progressively more unusual over the past half-hour that he’s spent slaying them all at ‘Uno’.

“Why in the world would Phichit like this game?” Victor asks as Yuuri takes his cards.  “It’s violent.”

“Not yet,” Yuri says, with a grin like a chef’s cleaver.

“Maybe because it turns around so fast,” Otabek says.  “You can go from being right about to win to having half the deck in your hand.”

Speaking of hands, Yuuri gets distracted by Victor’s for a second as they lay a card—tentatively, it has to be admitted—atop the pile.  They’re just so elegant, and lovely, and wonderful.

Unlike this game.

“I think that was part of it,” Yuuri says.  “The other part is that it gives you the option to try to be nice to people, but you can also deliberately ruin all of your relationships and blame it on the game.”

“That’s why it’s terrible!” Victor says.

Yuri smirks again as he rearranges the few cards remaining in his hand.  “If by ‘terrible’, you mean ‘great’.”

“By ‘terrible’,” Victor says, “I mean ‘terrible’.  What—”

“Uno,” Otabek says as he sets his second-to-last card on the pile.

“Oh, shit!” Yuri says.  “Quick, dog pile him!  Katsudon, you have to tear him to pieces!”

“I don’t have to do anything,” Yuuri says, calmly.

He then, very calmly, reverses the progress of play to make it Otabek’s turn again.

“Damn,” Otabek says, so far under his breath that it’s barely audible even to Yuuri sitting right beside him.  He starts drawing cards.  He continues drawing cards.  “ _Damn_ ,” he says again, louder this time.

Yuri cackles.  “You were saying?”

The faint smile that flickers over Otabek’s face before he gears up for a histrionic sigh speaks volumes.  “Yeah, yeah, rub it in.”

The faint dusting of a blush that skims Yuri’s cheekbones before he snickers down at his cards speaks several volumes more.

Yuuri glances at Victor, who’s glancing back at him, and that—

Oh, boy.  That is… magic.  Something like it.  The closest thing to mysticism that Yuuri’s ever felt anywhere except the ice, where gravity can be beaten, and sounds lose meaning, and the spray of white when your skates land just right feels like coming home.  Finding that in a _person_ —having it live and breathe and settle in close and warm beside him every chance it gets, instead of having to build it and make it and coax it into being with blood and sweat and far too many tears—

That’s a broad stroke of beauty that there aren’t words for.

He never thought he’d get this lucky.  He didn’t know it was possible.

They turn their attention back to the game—specifically, to ending the game; more specifically, to ending the game by letting Yuri win.  Fortunately, Yuuri is willing to bet that Yuri can’t imagine a universe where either of them is clever and/or magnanimous enough to throw a game of Uno for his benefit, so odds are very good that he won’t notice a thing.

“Oh, shoot,” Yuuri says, trying to make it convincing as he plays another harmless card that will, hopefully, not impede Yuri’s victory in the slightest.  “I don’t have anything good.”

“Me neither!” Victor says.  He’s a natural as an actor, but Yuuri prefers not to think too much about why he has so much practice.  It is sometimes fun to tell him that he’s being dramatic, though, and wait for him to get confused and start asking what other ways there are to be.  “We’re _doomed_ , Altin, you have to swoop in and save the… wow.”

Otabek just fanned out the entirety of his hand, which is at least a quarter of the full deck after his near-sweep turned into a fiasco.  “None of this is any good,” he says.  “Or I would’ve played it instead of pulling more cards.”  He puts down a red two, pretending to ignore the way that Yuri is wriggling with anticipation in his seat.  “Maybe he doesn’t have red.”

“Everyone has red in Russia,” Victor mutters, so quietly that Yuuri’s not sure he heard that right.

“Bunch of _suckers_ ,” Yuri says, slapping his last card—which is, of course, a wild draw-four—on the top of the pile.  “What’s my prize?”

“If only someone living here had a spare gold medal,” Otabek says.

Yuuri is confident that if he had said that, Yuri Plisetsky would not be laughing fit to crack a rib.

“Oh, gosh,” Victor says.  “You know what I just realized?”

“That I kicked your protégé’s ass _again_?” Yuri asks.

“No,” Victor says, so perfectly calmly that it makes Yuri start to wilt.  Victor doesn’t seem to notice, and furthermore unleashes one of his blinding grins.  “We’re never on this side of the city!  Yuuri hasn’t ever seen the sights!”

“The… sights,” Yuri says.  Clearly he’s never watched Victor will landmarks into being before.

“Imagine,” Victor says, latching onto Yuuri’s elbow, “with our practice schedule about to heat up so fast that your muscles will melt—”

“What?” Yuuri says.

“—this might be our last chance for _ages_ to go enjoy them!”

“I would,” Yuuri says, “like to see them before I die.”

Yuri is staring at both of them like… well, like they just did exactly what they just did, to be fair.

“It’s… really cold out there,” Otabek offers into the silence.

“Don’t worry,” Victor says, clinging tighter to Yuuri’s arm.  “Love will keep us warm.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Yuri says.  “Just _go_ , would you?”

“Anything for you, Yurio!” Victor chirps, and then he’s hauling on Yuuri’s arm, and they’re piling themselves back into their coats, and the way Victor’s eyes gleam when he’s trying not to laugh makes Yuuri’s heart feel like a hot air balloon far too big for his chest.

They make it all the way to the sidewalk before the laughter gets the better of them, and somehow that feels even warmer.

  


* * *

  


As the door slams, Otabek wonders what was in the hot chocolate that he bought.  He checked the label.  Can you even spike a powder?  Maybe it was cocaine.  Was there cocaine in the cocoa?  What kind of supermarket—

“Good fucking riddance,” Yuri says, which at least is normal enough, and he drank more than Victor and Yuuri put together.  “If they freeze to death out there, we’ll have _no_ trouble dominating the podium.  Rather than, y’know, a negligible amount.  ’Cause they suck.”

Otabek supposes that if anyone has a right to describe the previous performances of two world-class, highly-decorated figure skaters with that word, it would be an individual who’s beat one of them fair and square and could probably also best the other one out of the sheer force of spite alone.

“Who’s going to get bronze, then?” Otabek asks.

“That Thai kid,” Yuri says instantly, which confirms Otabek’s longstanding suspicion that no one in the universe is capable of disliking Phichit Chulanont.  “He’s all right.”

“Okay,” Otabek says.  “I’m in.”

Yuri’s grin has an awful lot of smirk in it—or maybe it’s the other way around.  “Good.  That settles it.”

Otabek feels a little bit like he just made a pact with some kind of lesser demon, and a lot bit like he doesn’t mind.

The cat, who has been hiding under one of the armchairs watching the proceedings and swishing her tail back and forth, creeps out, stalks across the floor, and jumps up onto the couch next to Otabek.  She sets both front paws on his thigh and starts kneading vigorously, which is a rather painful pet blessing, it has to be admitted.  He strokes the soft fur on her head and around her ears anyway.

“Eugh,” Yuri says, as emphatically as Yuri says everything.  “It’s, like, a thousand years until midnight.”  Otabek’s math puts it at about three and a half hours, but he’s not about to argue, especially not when Yuri’s up out of his chair and pacing the room like a tiger.  A small tiger.  “You want some tea or something?”

“Thank you,” Otabek says, “but I probably shouldn’t have too much caffeine this late, so…”

“Yeah,” Yuri says, pausing in the doorway to the kitchen to tap one of his much-too-talented feet.  “Well—you wanna split a cup?”

Otabek, whose hand has frozen in place where it was crooked under the cat’s chin for scratches, no longer cares if he is wired from now until Doomsday.  “Oh, uh—sure.”

“Cool,” Yuri says.  He disappears into the kitchenette, from which a remarkable variety of banging noises emanate.  Otabek didn’t realize that kettles were so much louder in Russia.  “What kind do you want?”

The cat has transitioned from staring at Otabek expectantly to staring at him like he has personally betrayed her past description.  “Uh… anything is fine.”

Yuri—or at least half of him, since he’s leaning in sideways—reappears in the doorway, scowling.  “Are you okay?”

“Me?” Otabek says, as if there’s anyone else who might respond.  Well, who knows; Yuri probably does talk to the cat; maybe sometimes she meows back.  “Um—yeah.  Of course.”

“Okay,” Yuri says.  He vanishes from the doorway again; the banging recommences with gusto.  “Ceylon okay?”

“Sure,” Otabek says.

The cat gives up on trying to drop hints and takes up butting her head against the palm of his hand instead.

Otabek pets her more attentively while the water boils, which apparently earns him the paw-print seal of approval—after a few minutes of it, she climbs into his lap and curls up there, purring.  He pauses in the petting again, and one of her eyes cracks open for an accusatory look.  He starts petting again.

Momentarily, Yuri returns with a steaming mug—a single steaming mug, yes, but one of such size that Otabek estimates that they’ll probably consume the same amount of caffeine that they would have with two separate mugs of the size possessed by ordinary human beings.

Otabek was raised properly, however, and one of the cardinal rules of courtesy is that you do not criticize the dishware of your host, even on occasions when it inspires you with moderate fear for your own survival.

To be fair, sometimes Yuri himself inspires Otabek with moderate fear for his survival, so the mug sort of fits.

Without spilling a drop, Yuri sits down on the couch beside him—close.  Closer than is probably strictly necessary to pass a mug back and forth, even in situations wherein the two mug-sharing parties are studiously pretending that they aren’t about to run their mouths all over ceramic imbued with one another’s spit, which is almost like kissing if you tilt your head and squint.

“It’s still really hot,” Yuri says, passing the mug to Otabek’s un-cat-attending hand.  “Be careful.  You wanna watch some TV?  Probably all that’s on is stupid New Year’s programs.”

“Yeah,” Otabek says.  “They can be good to make fun of, though.”

Yuri smirks.  Otabek thanks deities he’s not entirely sure he believes in that he didn’t just pour tea on the cat, because a man less accustomed to the devastation of Yuri’s face might well have startled hard enough to spill.

“You wanna turn the sound off and do their voices?” Yuri asks.

“ _Yes_ ,” Otabek says.

  


* * *

  


“Okay,” Yuuri says as they stride towards the criss-crossing strings of bright blue lights bowing over the gleaming streets.  “My guess is they’ll need about two and a half hours to get really settled, and then it’ll take us—what?—fifteen or twenty minutes to walk back, so if we stay here for the fireworks, that should just about time out perfectly.”  He scrunches up his nose a little as he looks to Victor.  Victor wants to kiss him—even more right now than Victor wants to kiss him all the time, which is a lot.  “Sound okay?”

“Perfect,” Victor says.

He means that in a general way, obviously; and in reference to every fiber of Yuuri’s beautiful being, obviously; but also in regards to the situation.  If it had been up to him, he probably would have just sort of shrugged and wandered around until he got bored, and then gone back and tried to peek through Yuri’s windows to see if it was safe to reenter or not, but Yuuri thought it out in detail.  Yuuri has a _timeline_.  Yuuri would probably color-code this plan if there was any tangible evidence of its nefariousness.

Victor loves that—how much Yuuri thinks things through and over.  It makes him feel grounded, and cared-for, and safe.  And he knows there’s a second edge on that sword; he’s seen it reflected in glistening eyes and heard the stutter of its heartbeat, but—

All the same.

He loves that Yuuri thinks so much.  He loves that Yuuri _cares_ so much—that things matter to him; that everything matters to him.  He loves that Yuuri meets the world head-on; and he loves that Yuuri believes, ferociously, that he can topple any Goliath to the ground with a sufficiently detailed plan of attack.

He loves the way Yuuri smiles, part triumph and part satisfaction and part relief, every time Victor agrees with one of his suggestions.  He loves the way Yuuri grips his hand a little tighter, and even with a cumulative pair of insulated gloves in the way, Victor could swear he can feel the pulse beating in Yuuri’s fingertips.

“All right,” Yuuri says.  “Are any of the shops still open?  Maybe there’s food.  I bet there’s vendors; there’s gonna be a ton of people here, right?  So—”

“Yuuri!” Victor says as the bright overhead lights of what is about to be their time-killing activity come into view.

“Oh, my God,” Yuuri says.  “Victor—”

“We have to!” Victor says, flinging an arm out to point at the lovely little skating rink set up in the park for good measure.

“Victor,” Yuuri says again, emphasizing the syllables in the way he does when he’s trying to be patient, “they probably have really cheap skates, which we’re not used to; and there’s tons of people, so we might crash into a kid and hurt them, and there’d be a lawsuit; and their ice is probably _crap_ this late in the day, and—”

“We _have_ to,” Victor says, tugging on Yuuri’s arm for good measure.

Yuuri grimaces.  “We really, really don’t.  Can’t we—”

“It’s my birthday,” Victor says.

The grimace morphs into a bewildered sort of pout-scowl-thing.  “Your birthday was Christmas.”

“It’s my birthday week,” Victor says.

“That’s not a thing,” Yuuri says.

“It’s a thing in Russia,” Victor says, hoping fervently that none of the passersby will hear them and care enough to mention that he just made that up.

Yuuri, who has been staring at him for several seconds now, slowly raises an eyebrow.  “Is it.”

Two can play at the practiced facial expression game: Victor gives him an undiluted dose of the full-on puppy eyes.

“ _Jeez_ ,” Yuuri says after only ten seconds, so he must be in a susceptible mood.  “Okay, okay, we can… no lifts, you hear me?  _No_ lifts.  And no jumps.  You’ll kill someone.”

“You must be very out of practice if you’re so averse to the idea of taking a little spin around the rink,” Victor says innocently.  “Guess we’ll have to increase the difficult of your training regimen by a pretty significant mar—”

Yuuri hauls on his hand, dragging him over towards the little booth where they’re renting out the skates.  “ _Come_ on.”

Victor’s name is so terribly descriptive most days.  Some days it’s the little victories that count for the most.

And some days, some nights, some moments, it’s other things altogether that count—things like the way the light gleams off of Yuuri Katsuki’s glasses as he clings on to Victor’s hands and skates backwards smoothly and throws his head back and laughs.  Things like the way the stars are out above them, and the chill in the air keeps biting at his cheeks, and his heart’s so full that he wonders what the word is for the opposite of loneliness.

It doesn’t matter, really, because words can’t do Yuuri justice, and Yuuri—joyous, graceful, mischievous—is all that he can see.

  


* * *

  


“Eugh,” Yuri says as the asinine commentator says something and gestures way more wildly than it merits to the countdown clock.  His head—Yuri’s, not the commentator’s, _obviously_ —has been resting on Otabek’s shoulder for some reason.  Potya decided Otabek was comfortable, and Yuri’s evil subconscious brain apparently decided about an hour ago that he was going to test that theory for himself.

“Is that a good ‘eugh’ or a bad ‘eugh’?” Otabek asks.

Smart man.

“I dunno,” Yuri says, reluctantly sitting up.  “Both.  Is it going to be suspicious if Nikiforov and Katsuki died out there?  Like, will it look like we did it?”

“We have an alibi,” Otabek says.

“We don’t have any witnesses,” Yuri says.

Otabek scratches behind Potya’s ears.  “She can be our witness.”

The laugh comes out of Yuri so unexpectedly that it leaves him in a horrible, awkward little snort-puff of a rush, and he probably sounds more like a pig than Katsudon.

Otabek just—grins, though.  Right at him.  Eyes on his, bright and intent but gentle somehow, like he’s not planning to pass judgment.

Yuri’s whole damn life has been about judgment, hasn’t it?  About being good enough, fast enough, skilled enough, smart enough, _cute_ enough to trick the people with the power into offering some of it to him.

“Shit,” Yuri says, hearing his own heart way too loudly in his ears.  Or is that the countdown ticking the last half-minute of the year away?  “Aren’t we—aren’t you supposed to kiss someone at midnight?  Like a good luck thing?”

Otabek pauses.  “I… thought it was more of a… the person you kiss at midnight’s supposed to be the person you spend the rest of the year with, or something.”

“Nah,” Yuri says.  “It’s definitely a good luck thing.  At least it is in Russia.”

Otabek blinks.  It’s got to be Yuri’s heartbeat, because he hasn’t touched the volume on the stupid television, but this drumming seems louder every second.

“Well, then,” Otabek says.  He smiles again—softly, softly—and reaches out and brushes a little bit of Yuri’s hair back, and it feels like his fingertips are live wires, and Yuri’s skin takes the current, and his blood sings through him, swifter still— “Good luck this year, Yuri.”

He can’t help leaning in closer, encouraging Otabek’s fingers to delve back into his hair, grazing over his ear on their way to settling against his scalp—

“Good luck, Otabek,” he says.

He tries to swallow, but it gets stuck; tries to run his tongue across his lips, but it doesn’t want to move—

Otabek’s eyes flick up to his, down to his mouth; Otabek takes a deep breath, smiles again, leans in closer still—

And their mouths meet—tentative at first, and then a little firmer, and then the breath that lodged in Yuri’s throat comes loose, and his lips part, and he tilts his head a little, and Otabek’s palm slides gently against his jaw—

And it’s—wonderful.  It’s wonderful and wild and staggering, and Yuri doesn’t know if those are fireworks, or if the nerve endings everywhere underneath his skin are staging a violent revolt.  It sounds like the first one, but it sure feels like both.

He draws back, after a couple of seconds of his head spinning and his heart gaining speed, and tries hard at a roguish grin.

“You’ll need it,” he says.  “I’m giving this year’s programs everything I’ve got.”

“Good,” Otabek says, instead of _How is that different from last year?_ , which isn’t a question Yuri has an answer to.  He forgets to try to think of one when Otabek angles his head, just slightly, and arches an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth turns up, which makes Yuri’s throat go very, very dry.  “I like a challenge.”

Maybe if Yuri sits here a few seconds longer, marinating in the heat radiating off of his own face—

“ _Ahh_ ,” Otabek says, and the terrible, terrible, beautiful smirk has vanished in favor of a wince.  They both look down at where Potya just stretched out extravagantly and buried all of her claws in Otabek’s leg.  “Ow—ow.”

“Shit,” Yuri says, reaching over to try to dislodge her from the flesh of the only guest he’s ever had over that he didn’t kind of want to slaughter.  “Happy fuckin’ new year, I guess.”

A rueful grin emerges from the tail end of the cringing.  “Something like that.”

  


* * *

  


“He doesn’t have a gun, does he?” Victor asks as Yuuri raises a hand to knock.

“Why would I know that?” Yuuri asks.

It’s difficult to tell under the profusion of layers, but it looks like Victor shrugs.  “You know a lot of things.”

“Well, I don’t know that,” Yuuri says, applying his knuckles briskly to the door.  “But here’s hoping.”

Victor’s grin might fell a lesser being.  Or a being less accustomed to watching him literally roll around on the floor, cooing at the dog.  He slings his arm around Yuuri’s shoulders and hugs tightly.  “That’s a good way to start out a new year, isn’t it?  Hoping.”

Before Yuuri has a chance to answer, Yuri’s voice from within says, “ _Shit_!”, followed by “Ow!”, and then Otabek says “Sorry,” and Yuri says “It’s not _your_ fault.”

The door opens a crack, and Yuri’s well-practiced glare appears in the space.

He opens the door a little further and starts to step back out of the way to let them enter—but not fast enough to make Yuuri miss the pink indentation marks on his cheek, which bear more than a passing resemblance to the cable-knit of Otabek’s sweater, as might befit someone who had been dozing with his head rested on someone else’s chest.

“Damn,” Yuri says.  “I was starting to think you’d died.  It’s just like you two assholes to change your minds right when I was getting excited.”  He shuffles off towards the kitchen, waving one hand over his shoulder.  “Happy new year or whatever, I guess.”

Yuuri draws Victor inside with him and shuts the door.  Otabek appears to be attempting to disentangle the cat from where it has attached itself, possibly permanently, to his clothes.

“Happy new year,” Yuuri says, grinning after Yuri despite himself—perhaps despite all of them.  “Thanks for having us over even though we’re hopeless.”

“Gotta start out my year with some charity work,” Yuri says from the kitchen.  “You want anything to drink?”

“Do you have champagne?” Victor asks, squeezing Yuuri’s arm again.  “We have to celebrate!”

Yuri’s very well-traveled glare makes an appearance around the edge of the doorframe leading to the kitchen.  “What the hell is there to celebrate?”

Victor makes a face.

“ _Everything_ ,” he says.

Otabek laughs softly.  He’s finally wrangled the cat into his arms, though it seems to be adhered to one of his sleeves now.

“I’ll drink to that,” Otabek says.

“Me, too,” Yuuri says.

“I know _you_ will, you degenerate,” Yuri says.  He scowls.  “Fine.  But if any of you tries to start a dance party, I’m throwing you out into the snow and locking all the doors.”

“That’s fair,” Yuuri says.

Just this minute—and just _for_ this minute, maybe—it seems like the whole world is.


End file.
